CHAPTER XV.

THE CAVE OF THE BEARS.

"I had found out a sweet green spot, Where a lily was blooming fair; The din of the city disturbed it not; But the spirit that shades the quiet cot With its wings of love was there.

"I found that lily's bloom When the day was dark and chill; It smiled like a star in a misty gloom, And it sent abroad a sweet perfume, Which is floating around me still."

PERCIVAL.

More than twenty miles beyond Sleeping Water is a curious church built of cobblestones.

Many years ago, the devoted priest of this parish resolved that his flock must have a new church, and yet how were they to obtain one without money? He pondered over the problem for some time, and at last he arrived at a satisfactory solution. Would his parishioners give time and labor, if he supplied the material for construction?

They would,--and he pointed to the stones on the beach. The Bay already supplied them with meat and drink, they were now to obtain a place of worship from it. They worked with a will, and in a short time their church went up like the temple of old, without the aid of alien labor.

Vesper, on the day after the picnic, had announced his intention of visiting this church, and Agapit, in unconcealed disapproval and slight vexation, stood watching him clean his wheel, preparatory to setting out on the road down the Bay.

He would be sure to overtake Rose, who had shortly before left the inn with Narcisse. She had had a terrible scene with the child relative to the approaching departure of the American, and Agapit himself had advised her to take him to her stepmother. He wished now that he had not done so, he wished that he could prevent Vesper from going after her,--he almost wished that this quiet, imperturbable young man had never come to the Bay.

"And yet, why should I do that?" he reflected, penitently. "Does not good come when one works from honest motives, though bad only is at first apparent? Though we suffer now, we may yet be happy," and, casting a long, reluctant look at the taciturn young American, he rose from his comfortable seat and went up-stairs. He was tired, out of sorts, and irresistibly sleepy, having been up all night examining the old documents left by his uncle, the priest, in the hope of finding something relating to the Fiery Frenchman, for he was now as anxious to conclude Vesper's mission to the Bay as he had formerly been to prolong it.

With a quiet step he crept past the darkened room where Mrs. Nimmo, after worrying her son by her insistence on doing her own packing, had been obliged to retire, in a high state of irritation, and with a raging headache.

He hoped that the poor lady would be able to travel by the morrow; her son would be, there was no doubt of that. How well and strong he seemed now, how immeasurably he had gained in physical well-being since coming to the Bay.

"For that we should be thankful," said Agapit, in sincere admiration and regard, as he stood by his window and watched Vesper spinning down the road.

"He goes so cool, so careless, like those soldiers who went to battle with a rose between their lips, and I do not dare to warn, to question, lest I bring on what I would keep back. But do thou, my cousin Rose, not linger on the way. It would be better for thee to bite a piece from thy little tongue than to have words with this handsome stranger whom I fear thou lovest. Now to work again, and then, if there is time, half an hour's sleep before supper, for my eyelids flag strangely."

Agapit sat down before the table bestrewn with papers, while Vesper went swiftly over the road until he reached the picnic ground of the day before, now restored to its former quietness as a grazing place for cows. Of all the cheerful show there was left only the big merry-go-round, that was being packed in an enormous wagon drawn by four pairs of oxen.

"What are you going to do with it?" asked Vesper, springing off his wheel, and addressing the Acadiens at work.

"We take it to a parish farther down the Bay, where there is to be yet another picnic," said one of them.

"How much did they make yesterday?" pursued Vesper.

"Six hundred dollars, and only four hundred the day before, and three the first, for you remember those days were partly rainy."

"And some people say that you Acadiens are poor."

The man grinned. "There were many people here, many things. This wooden darling," and he pointed to the dismembered merry-go-round, "earned one dollar and twenty cents every five minutes. We need much for our churches," and he jerked his thumb towards the red cathedral. "The plaster falls, it must be restored. Do you go far, sir?"

Vesper mentioned his destination.

All the Acadiens on the Bay knew him and took a friendly interest in his movements, and the man advised him to take in the Cave of the Bears, that was also a show-place for strangers. "It is three miles farther, where there is a bite in the shore, and the bluff is high. You will know it by two yellow houses, like twins. Descend there, and you will see a troop of ugly bears quite still about a cave. The Indians of this coast say that their great man, Glooscap, in days before the French came, once sat in the cave to rest. Some hungry bears came to eat him, but he stretched out a pine-tree that he carried and they were turned to stone."

Vesper thanked him, and went on. When he reached the sudden and picturesque cove in the Bay, his attention was caught, not so much by its beauty, as by the presence of the inn pony, who neighed a joyful welcome, and impatiently jerked back and forth the road-cart to which he was attached.

Vesper glanced sharply at the yellow houses. Perhaps Rose was making a call in one of them. Then he stroked the pony, who playfully nipped his coat sleeve, and, after propping his wheel against a stump, ran nimbly down a grassy road, where a goat was soberly feeding among lobster-traps and drawn-up boats.

He crossed the strip of sand in the semicircular inlet, and there before him were the bears,--ugly brown rocks with coats of slippery seaweed, their grinning heads turned towards the mouth of a black cavern in the lower part of the bluff, their staring eye-sockets fixed on the dainty woman's figure inside, as if they would fain devour her.

Rose sat with her face to the sea, her head against the damp rock wall,--her whole attitude one of abandonment and mournful despair.

Vesper began to hurry towards her, but, catching sight of Narcisse, he stopped.

The child, with a face convulsed and tear-stained, was angrily seizing stones from the beach to fling them against the most lifelike bear of all,--a grotesque, hideous creature, that appeared to be shouldering his way from the water in order to plunge into the cave.

"Dost thou mock me?" exclaimed Narcisse, furiously. "I will strike thee yet again, thou hateful thing. Thou shalt not come on shore to eat my mother and the Englishman," and he dashed a yet larger stone against it.

"Narcisse," said Vesper.

The child turned quickly. Then his trouble was forgotten, and stumbling and slipping over the seaweed, but at last attaining his goal, he flung his small unhappy self against Vesper's breast. "I love you, I love you,--_gros comme la grange à Pinot_" (as much as Pinot's barn),--"yet my mother carried me away. Take me with you, Mr. Englishman. Narcisse is very sick without you."

In maternal alarm Rose sprang up at her child's first shriek. Then she sank back, pale and confused, for Vesper's eye was upon her, although apparently he was engaged only in fondling the little curly head, and in allowing the child to stroke his face and dive into his pockets, to pull out his watch, and indulge in the fond and foolish familiarities permitted to a child by a loving father.

"Go to her, Narcisse," said Vesper, presently, and the small boy ran into the cave. "My mother, my mother!" he cried, in an ecstasy; and he wagged his curly head as if he would shake it from his body. "The Englishman returns to you and to me,--he will stay away only a short time. Come, get up, get up. Let us go back to the inn. I am to go no more to my grandmother. Is it not so?" and he anxiously gazed at Vesper, who was slowly approaching.

Vesper did not speak, neither did Rose. What was the matter with these grown people that they stared so stupidly at each other?

"Have you a headache, Mr. Englishman?" he asked, with abrupt childish anxiety, as he noticed a sudden and unusual wave of color sweeping over his friend's face. "And you, my mother,--why do you hang your head? Give only the Englishman your hand and he will lift you from the rock. He is strong, very strong,--he carries me over the rough places."

"Will you give me your hand, Rose?"

She started back, with a heart-broken gesture.

"But you are imbecile, my darling mother!" cried Narcisse, throwing himself on her in terror. "The Englishman will become angry,--he will leave us. Give him your hand, and let us go from this place," and, resolutely seizing her fluttering fingers in his own soft ones, he directed them to Vesper's strong, true clasp.

"Go stone the bears again, Narcisse," said the young man, with a strange quiver in his voice. "I will talk to your mother about going back to the inn. See, she is not well;" for Rose had bowed her weary head on her arm.

"Yes, talk to her," said the child, "that is good, and, above all, do not let her hand go. She runs from me sometimes, the little naughty mother," and, with affected roguishness that, however, concealed a certain anxiety, he put his head on one side, and stared affectionately at her as he left the cave.

He had gone some distance, and Vesper had already whispered a few words in Rose's ear, when he returned and stared again at them. "Will you tell me only one little story, Mr. Englishman?"

"About what, you small bother?"

"About bears, big brown bears, not gentle trees."

"There was once a sick bear," said the young man, "and he went all about the world, but could not get well until he found a quiet spot, where a gentle lady cured him."

"And then--"

"The lady had a cub," said Vesper, suddenly catching him in his arms and taking him out to the strip of sand, "a fascinating cub that the bear--I mean the man--adored."

Narcisse laughed gleefully, snatched Vesper's cap and set off with it, fell into a pool of water and was rescued, and set to the task of taking off his shoes and stockings and drying them in the sun, while Vesper went back to Rose, who still sat like a person in acute distress of body and mind.

"I was sudden,--I startled you," he murmured.

She made a dissenting gesture, but did not speak.

"Will you look at me, Rose?" he said, softly; "just once."

"But I am afraid," fluttered from her pale lips. "When I gaze into your eyes it is hard--"

He stood over her in such quiet, breathless sympathy that presently she looked up, thinking he was gone.

His glance caught and held hers. She got up, allowed him to take her hands and press them to his lips, and to place on her head the hat that had fallen to the ground.

"I will say nothing more now," he murmured, "you are shocked and upset. We had better go home."

"Come and be presented to Mrs. Nimmo," suddenly said a saucy, laughing voice.

Rose started nervously. Her sister Perside had caught sight of them,--teasing, yet considerate Perside, since she had bestowed only one glance on the lovers, and had then gone sauntering past the mouth of the cave, out to the wide array of black rocks beyond them. She carried a hooked stick over her shoulder, and a tin pail in her hand, and sometimes she looked back at a second girl, similarly equipped, who was running down the grassy road after her.

Nothing could have made Rose more quickly recover herself. "It is not the time of perigee,--you will find nothing," she called after Perside; then she added to Vesper, in a low, shy voice, "She seeks lobsters. She danced so much at the picnic that she was too tired to go home, and had to stay here with cousins."

"Times and seasons do not matter for some things," returned Perside, gaily, over her shoulder; "one has the fun."

Narcisse stopped digging his bare toes in the sand and shrieked, delightedly, "Aunt Perside, aunt Perside, do you know the Englishman returns to my mother and me? He will never leave us, and I am not to go to my grandmother." Then, fearful that his assertions had been too strong, he averted his gaze from the two approaching people, and fixed it on the blazing sun.

"Will you promise not to make a scene when I leave to-morrow?" said Vesper.

Narcisse blinked at him, his eyes full of spots and wheels and revolving lights. He was silly with joy, and gurgled deep down in his little throat. "Let me kiss your hand, as you kissed my mother's. It is a pretty sight."

"Will you be a good boy when I leave to-morrow," said Vesper again.

"But why should I cry if you return?" cried the child, excitedly flinging a handful of sand at his boots. "Narcisse will never again be bad," and rolling over and over, and kicking his pink heels in glee, he forced Vesper and Rose to retire to a respectful distance.

They stood watching him for some time, and, as they watched, Rose's tortured face grew calm, and a spark of the divine passion animating her lover's face came into her deep blue eyes. She had no right to break the tender, sensitive little heart given so strangely to this stranger. She would forget Agapit and his warnings; she would forget the proud women of her race, who would not wed a stranger, and one of another creed; she would also forget the nervous, jealous mother who would keep her son from all women.

"You have asked me for myself," she said, impulsively stretching out her hands to him, "for myself and my child. We are yours."

Vesper bent down, and pressed her cool fingers against his burning cheeks. She smiled at him, even laughed gleefully, and passed her hands over his head in a playful caress; then, with her former expression of exaltation and virginal modesty and shyness, she ran up the grassy road, and paused at the top to look back at him, as he toiled up with Narcisse.

She was vivacious and merry now,--he had never seen her just so before. In an instant,--a breath,--with her surrender to him, she had seemed to drop her load of care, that usually made her youthful face so grave and sweet beyond her years. He would like to see her cheerful and laughing--thoughtless even; and murmuring endearing epithets under his breath, he assisted her into the cart, placed the reins in her hands, tucked Narcisse in by her side, and, surreptitiously lifting a fold of her dress to his face, murmured, "_Au revoir_, my sweet saint."

Then, stroking his mustache to conceal from the yellow houses his proud smile of ownership, he watched the upright pose of the light head, and the contorted appearance of the dark one that was twisted over a little shoulder as long as the cart was in sight.

He forgot all about the church, and, going back to the beach, he lay for a long time sunning himself on the sand, and plunged in a delicious reverie. Then, mounting his wheel, he returned to the inn.

Agapit was running excitedly to and fro on the veranda. "Come, make haste," he cried, as he caught sight of him in the distance. "Extremely strange things have happened--Let me assist you with that wheel,--a malediction on it, these bicycles go always where one does not expect. There is news of the Fiery Frenchman. I found something, also Father La Croix."

"This is interesting," said Vesper, good-naturedly, as he folded his arms, and lounged against one of the veranda posts.

"I was delving among my uncle's papers. I had precipitately come on the name of LeNoir,--Etex, the son of Raphael, who was a wealthy _bourgeois_ of Calais, and emigrated to Grand Pré. He was dead when the expulsion came, and of his two sons one, Gabriel LeNoir, escaped up the St. John River, and that Gabriel was my ancestor, and that of Rose; therefore, most astonishingly to me, we are related to this family whom you have sought," and Agapit wound up with a flourish of his hands and his heels.

"I am glad of this," said Vesper, in a deeply gratified voice.

"But more remains. I was shouting over my discovery, when Father La Croix came. I ran, I descended,--the good man presented his compliments to madame and you. Several of his people went to him this morning. They had questioned the old ones. He wrote what they said, and here it is. See--the son of the murdered Etex was Samson. His mother landed in Philadelphia. In griping poverty the boy grew up. He went to Boston. He joined the Acadiens who marched the five hundred miles through the woods to Acadie. He arrived at the Baie Chaleur, where he married a Comeau. He had many children, but his eldest, Jean, is he in whom you will interest yourself, as in the direct line."

"And what of Jean?" asked Vesper, when Agapit stopped to catch his breath.

Agapit pointed to the Bay. "He lies over Digby Neck, in the Bay of Fundy, but his only child is on this Bay."

"A boy or a girl?"

"A devil," cried Agapit, in a burst of grief, "a little devil."